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Verified July 27, 2026

Video to SRT — Convert Video to Subtitle File Free (+ How-To Guide for Every Editor)

Two things on one page. Drop a video (MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, FLV) into the converter above and get back a standard SRT with per-cue timestamps in about 5–10 minutes for a 1-hour file. Then use the step-by-step guide below to add that SRT (or any existing SRT) to your video in Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut, YouTube Studio, or iMovie — with an honest workaround for the iMovie limitation.

By VexaScribe Editorial · Verified July 27, 2026

Convert video to SRT free Jump to How-To Guide

CONVERTER

Upload video → download SRT / VTT / TXT

MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, FLV · up to 5 GB · 100+ languages · free tier included

Drop your video here to convert to SRT

Or click to browse · MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, FLV · up to 5 GB

Output

SRT, VTT, TXT, DOCX, PDF

Accuracy

~92–97% clean English

Turnaround

~5–10 min per hour

TL;DR

Convert video to SRT with VexaScribe (Whisper Large-v3): upload MP4/MOV/MKV/WebM/AVI/FLV, get back a standard SRT in ~5–10 min per hour of audio, 100+ languages, free tier. Then add the SRT via Premiere Pro (Window > Captions > Import), DaVinci Resolve (Deliver > Subtitle track), CapCut (Import Caption), YouTube Studio (Content > Subtitles > Upload), or FFmpeg. iMovie does NOT import SRT — burn it in with HandBrake first.

How the video-to-SRT tool works

Upload the video

Drop the file into the converter above (MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, FLV — up to 5 GB) or paste a direct URL. VexaScribe extracts the audio track via FFmpeg before invoking the model, so any container is fine.

Pick language + speakers

Auto-detect language, or specify one of 100+ languages for reliability. Turn on speaker detection for interviews or panels. Choose SRT as the export (VTT, TXT, DOCX, PDF also available).

Download the SRT

Whisper Large-v3 (arXiv:2212.04356) processes a 1-hour video in ~5–10 minutes. The output is a standard SubRip file with numbered cues, HH:MM:SS,mmm timing, ready for every editor and platform in the guide below.

Supported input formats

The video codec inside the container does not matter — Whisper operates on the audio track, and VexaScribe extracts audio with FFmpeg before transcribing. In practice, anything FFmpeg can decode works: the list below is the common cases explicitly.

Format	Extension	Notes
MP4 (H.264/H.265 + AAC)	.mp4	Most common; recommended input for anything from a phone or screen recorder
MOV (Apple QuickTime)	.mov	iPhone recordings, Final Cut Pro exports
MKV (Matroska)	.mkv	Container format, multiple audio and subtitle streams supported
WebM (VP8/VP9 + Opus)	.webm	YouTube download format, Chrome screen recordings
AVI	.avi	Legacy container; audio is extracted the same way
FLV	.flv	Older Flash video files; audio track is extracted via FFmpeg

Source: FFmpeg demuxer list (ffmpeg.org); Whisper Large-v3 model card. Verified July 27, 2026.

Burn-in vs SRT sidecar — which do you actually want?

Sidecar (soft-subs) keeps the SRT as a separate file the platform or player loads alongside the video. Burn-in (hardcoded, open captions) renders the caption pixels into the video itself. The fork is not stylistic — it is dictated by where the video is going.

Dimension	SRT sidecar	Burn-in
Editability	Edit .srt text — no re-render	Re-render the whole video to fix a typo
File size	SRT is a few KB	~5–15% larger MP4 from re-encoding
Viewer control	Toggle on/off, adjust font	Locked; no viewer control
Multi-language	One SRT per language, viewer picks	One video per language
Universal playback	Depends on player supporting soft-subs	Any player, any surface
Best on	YouTube, Vimeo, LinkedIn, LMS, web player	TikTok, Instagram Reels, silent autoplay feeds
Accessibility (WCAG 2.1)	Preferred — viewer controls font/size	Compliant but no viewer adjustment

Rule of thumb: YouTube, Vimeo, LinkedIn, and any LMS → sidecar. TikTok, Instagram Reels, and silent-autoplay social feeds → burn-in. If a video crosses both, generate the SRT once, upload as sidecar to long-form, then burn it in for the short-form cut. More detail in what is closed captioning.

How to add subtitles to a video (step-by-step by editor)

Once the SRT exists — whether you just generated one with the tool above or you already had one — here is how to actually get it onto the video in every editor people ask about. Each subsection is the fastest working path in the current UI (2024–2026 releases). If your editor is not listed, FFmpeg burns any SRT into any video with a single command; that fallback is covered under Bulk workflow below.

Adobe Premiere Pro

Open your project. Go to Window > Captions to open the Captions panel.
Click + New Caption Track at the top of the panel, choose Subtitle as the format.
Open the panel's overflow menu (three dots) > Import Captions from File > select your .srt.
Premiere places the caption clip on a caption track above your video sequence with cues auto-timed from the SRT.
To ship burn-in: File > Export > Media > Captions > set Export Options to Burn Captions Into Video. To ship sidecar: choose Create Sidecar File instead.

Source: helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/working-with-captions · Verified July 27, 2026 (Premiere Pro 24.x / 25.x).

iMovie (honest: iMovie does NOT natively import SRT)

This is the honest answer people rarely get from tutorial pages: iMovie for macOS and iMovie for iOS have no Import Subtitles menu, no SRT import option in any hidden panel, and no plugin API to add one. Every “iMovie SRT” workflow you will find is one of three workarounds:

Burn the SRT in first, then edit the captioned video in iMovie. This is the practical path. Use HandBrake (free): open the video > Subtitles tab > Import SRT > check Burned In > Start Encode. Import the resulting captioned MP4 into iMovie for further editing.
Manually retype each caption as a Title. iMovie > Titles > Standard, drag onto each clip, retype, re-time. Not viable for anything longer than a couple minutes.
Use CapCut instead. CapCut Desktop (Mac) and CapCut Mobile (iOS) both import SRT directly (Text > Import Caption) and export MP4. If iMovie is not required, this is the fastest route.

Source: support.apple.com/imovie — no SRT import documented in current iMovie 10.4.x (macOS) or iMovie for iOS. Verified July 27, 2026.

DaVinci Resolve

On the Edit page, right-click in the timeline area > Import > Subtitle, pick your .srt.
Resolve adds a subtitle track above your video track with cues at the SRT timings. Adjust font, size, position, and background via Inspector > Subtitle.
Go to the Deliver page. In the Subtitle Settings panel, enable Export Subtitle.
Choose the format: Burn Into Video for hardcoded pixels, or As A Separate File for sidecar SRT/WebVTT delivery alongside the video.
Click Render All.

Source: blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve reference manual, Subtitles chapter. Verified July 27, 2026 (Resolve 19).

CapCut (Desktop & Mobile)

CapCut is the fastest route on both desktop and mobile because it accepts SRT directly AND has a one-click Auto Caption generator.

Import the video into a new project.
Option A — Auto Captions: Text panel > Auto Captions > pick language > Generate. CapCut transcribes on-device (or cloud on mobile) and places captions on the timeline.
Option B — Import an existing SRT: Text panel > Import Caption (desktop) or Captions > Import (mobile) > select your .srt. Cues are added at their SRT timings.
Style the captions (font, size, color, background). CapCut's templates for TikTok/Reels styling are under the Text > Styles tab.
Click Export to render the captioned MP4. Captions are always burned in on export from CapCut.

Source: capcut.com feature documentation. Verified July 27, 2026.

YouTube Studio

Open studio.youtube.com > Content > click the video you want to add captions to.
In the left sidebar of the video's detail page, click Subtitles.
Click Add Language if the language you want is not listed, then click Add next to the language row.
Choose Upload file > With timing > select your .srt.
Preview, adjust if needed, then click Publish. Captions go live as soft-subs viewers can toggle via the CC button.

Source: support.google.com/youtube/answer/2734796. Verified July 27, 2026.

iPhone (CapCut Mobile is the answer)

iMovie for iOS is not viable — no SRT import, and its Titles system is not built for line-by-line captions. The realistic iPhone workflow:

Install CapCut Mobile (free, App Store).
Import your video into a new project.
Either tap Text > Auto Captions to generate on-device, OR tap Captions > Import and load an .srt from Files (AirDrop or iCloud Drive the SRT from your Mac first, or generate it in a mobile browser at VexaScribe).
Style, then Export to save the captioned MP4 back to Photos.

For sidecar (soft-sub) delivery from iPhone, upload the video to YouTube from the Photos app and then add the SRT via YouTube Studio in mobile Safari — the desktop-request version of the site exposes the Subtitles upload.

How to edit the SRT after auto-generation

Every auto-generated SRT needs a light cleanup pass — proper nouns, technical vocabulary, and product names are where Whisper mis-hears most often. SRT is plain text, so you can edit it in any text editor (Notepad, TextEdit, VS Code, Sublime), or in a purpose-built subtitle editor.

Fix a word

Open the .srt in a text editor, use Find & Replace across the whole file for a name that recurs (e.g. company name spelled wrong every time). Save. The timing lines (HH:MM:SS,mmm --> HH:MM:SS,mmm) do not need to change.

Shift timing

If the SRT is off by a fixed offset (e.g. all captions 2 seconds late), use Subtitle Edit (free, Windows) > Synchronization > Adjust all times. For per-cue drift, re-generate in VexaScribe with the correct language specified.

Line-length rules

Keep each caption line under ~42 characters and each cue under ~2 lines to stay readable on mobile. VexaScribe segments to those defaults; if you edit manually, keep the same discipline. Netflix's style guide is a good public reference.

Add speaker labels & non-speech cues

For WCAG 2.1 SC 1.2.2 compliance, add speaker labels (SPEAKER 1:) and non-speech cues ([music], [applause]) directly into the SRT text lines. VexaScribe emits speaker labels automatically when speaker detection is enabled at upload.

Format details in what is an SRT file. If you have text but no video, use the SRT generator; if you have audio instead of video, use audio to SRT.

Bulk video-to-SRT

The web converter above is one-at-a-time by design — most people convert one file, download the SRT, move on. If you have dozens or hundreds of videos to caption (e.g. a full course catalog or a podcast back-catalog with video), there are two CLI-friendly routes:

VexaScribe API

For team-scale automation, the VexaScribe API accepts video uploads and returns SRT programmatically — same Whisper Large-v3 pipeline as the web converter. Contact sales for API access; scoped to Pro and Studio plans.

Self-hosted: yt-dlp + Whisper

For technically confident users who want a local pipeline: yt-dlp downloads videos in bulk (from YouTube, Vimeo, and 1,000+ other sites), then a local Whisper install produces SRT for each file.

# download a whole channel yt-dlp -f "bestvideo+bestaudio" https://youtube.com/@channel # batch-transcribe with whisper (openai-whisper pip package) for f in *.mp4; do whisper "$f" --model large-v3 --output_format srt; done

Trade-off: you need a GPU for reasonable throughput on large-v3, and you manage the pipeline. The hosted converter is faster to try and typically cheaper unless you are running >100 hours/month.

When to hire a human transcriptionist

AI transcription is right for ~90–95% of use cases. It stops being the right tool when the ceiling on accuracy matters more than cost or turnaround. Concrete cases where human transcription (Rev, Verbit, GoTranscript — typically $1–2 per audio minute) is worth it:

Legal proceedings, depositions, court transcripts — evidentiary use demands 99%+ accuracy and certified transcriptionists.
Medical dictation for patient records — HIPAA workflows, terminology accuracy, and liability considerations.
Broadcast captions with strict WCAG/CVAA compliance — networks and streaming platforms often require human-reviewed captions.
Field recordings with heavy accents, overlapping speech, or crowd noise — where Whisper drops below ~80% and cleanup exceeds the cost of a human pass.

For everything else — YouTube videos, marketing content, courses, podcast video, interviews, meeting recordings, social clips — AI transcription with a light human editing pass is the right shape.

Sources & verification

Whisper Large-v3 (arXiv:2212.04356): arxiv.org/abs/2212.04356 — original paper (Radford et al., OpenAI). Accuracy figures on this page reference Table 5 of the paper plus internal testing.
Adobe Premiere Pro captions: helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/working-with-captions
Apple iMovie support: support.apple.com/imovie — verified no native SRT import in current release.
DaVinci Resolve manual: blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve
CapCut Auto Captions: capcut.com
YouTube Studio SRT upload: support.google.com/youtube/answer/2734796
yt-dlp: github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp
FFmpeg subtitles filter: ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#subtitles

All UI steps and version numbers verified against current vendor documentation July 27, 2026.

Video to SRT FAQ

How do I convert a video to SRT?

Upload the video (MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, FLV — up to 5 GB) to VexaScribe, pick the language (or auto-detect), toggle speaker labels if the video has more than one person, and export as SRT. Whisper Large-v3 processes a 1-hour video in about 5–10 minutes and produces standard SubRip cues with HH:MM:SS,mmm timestamps ready for any editor or platform.

How do I add subtitles to a video?

There are two shapes. (1) SRT sidecar — upload the .srt alongside the video via a platform's caption feature (YouTube Studio, Vimeo Advanced, LinkedIn publish). (2) Burn-in — render the captions into the video pixels using a video editor (Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, iMovie workaround, CapCut) or FFmpeg. Use sidecar for YouTube and long-form; use burn-in for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and any surface that ignores sidecar tracks.

How do I add subtitles to a video in Premiere Pro?

In Premiere Pro (2024 or later): Window > Captions to open the Captions panel, click the '+' to create a new caption track, then in the panel's overflow menu choose Import Captions from File and pick your .srt. Premiere aligns the cues to the sequence timeline automatically. To burn them into the export, enable Burn Captions Into Video in the Export > Captions panel; to ship as sidecar, choose Create Sidecar File instead.

How do I add subtitles to a video in iMovie?

Honest answer: iMovie (macOS and iOS) does NOT natively import SRT files — there is no Import Subtitles menu. The workarounds: (1) burn-in the SRT outside iMovie first using HandBrake or FFmpeg, then edit the captioned MP4 in iMovie; (2) manually add each caption as a Title (Titles > Standard) and re-time it; (3) use CapCut (free, Mac and iOS) which imports SRT directly and exports MP4. For anything longer than a few minutes, option 1 (HandBrake burn-in first) is the practical path.

Can I add subtitles to a video for free?

Yes. VexaScribe's free tier gives you 30 minutes of transcription at signup — enough for a 20–30 minute video to SRT. FFmpeg (free, open source) burns the SRT into the video with one command. CapCut Desktop and DaVinci Resolve (free tier) both import SRT and export captioned MP4. YouTube accepts SRT uploads for free on any video. No paid tool is strictly required.

What's the difference between burn-in and SRT sidecar subtitles?

Sidecar (soft-subs) means the SRT rides alongside the video as a separate file or subtitle stream — viewers toggle it, choose language, adjust font size. Burn-in (hardcoded, open captions) renders the caption pixels into the video itself — always visible, no toggle, one language per file. Sidecar wins on file size, editability, and accessibility. Burn-in wins on universal playback (TikTok, Instagram Reels, silent autoplay feeds).

What video formats are supported?

MP4 (H.264/H.265 + AAC), MOV (Apple QuickTime, iPhone recordings), MKV (Matroska), WebM (VP8/VP9 + Opus), AVI, and FLV — plus anything else FFmpeg can decode (OGV, 3GP, TS, MXF). VexaScribe extracts the audio track before invoking Whisper Large-v3, so the video codec inside the container does not matter as long as the audio is intact.

How accurate are auto-generated subtitles from video?

Whisper Large-v3 (arXiv:2212.04356, Table 5) hits ~92–97% word accuracy on clean single-speaker English, ~85–92% on two-person interviews, ~78–88% on panels or background-music vlogs, and ~65–78% on field recordings with wind or crowd noise. Plan a light editing pass for proper nouns, product names, and technical vocabulary — a few minutes per hour of clean audio, more for noisy or multi-speaker content.

Can I add subtitles to a video on iPhone?

The reliable iPhone path is CapCut Mobile (free): Import video > Text > Auto Captions to generate on-device, OR tap Import Caption to load an SRT you generated on VexaScribe. Export the captioned MP4 back to Photos. iMovie iOS does not import SRT and its Titles system is not built for line-by-line captions, so it is not a practical route for anything longer than a short reel.

How do I add captions to a video?

Captions and subtitles use the same file formats (SRT, VTT) and the same tools — the distinction is intent (captions include speaker labels and non-speech audio cues for accessibility; subtitles assume the viewer can hear). Same workflow either way: generate the SRT (VexaScribe or any Whisper front-end), then either upload as sidecar (YouTube Studio > Subtitles > Add) or burn-in with Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut, or FFmpeg. For WCAG 2.1 SC 1.2.2 compliance, add speaker labels and [music]/[applause] tags to the SRT before upload.

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